“Is it?” he asked slowly, looking at Priscilla with narrowed, searching eyes.
“Of course,” she answered, looking away quickly to give Margaret a flustered grin before dragging her sister into the house.
Pausing her memories of last night, Margaret stared at the exposed beams in her bedroom and puzzled over the odd exchange. There’d been a quick shot of electricity between her sister and her un-boyfriend. Something indefinable, but palpable. There was history between them—she’d bet her life on it. Maybe something small and insignificant, but something nonetheless.
A place had been set for Priscilla at the dinner table, but at some point between welcoming Shane and Margaret and the dinner bell, Pris pulled one of her famous disappearing acts, which infuriated Margaret’s father.
“Damned flibbertigibbet,” he puffed, settling himself in his throne at the head of the table and directing the housemaid to clear away Priscilla’s place. “If she’s going to stay here for a while, I’d appreciate it if you’d have a word with her, Margaret Anne. Tell her to cover up those disgraceful markings all over her arms. And observe common courtesy at mealtimes.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We run a tight ship here at Forrester.”
“Yes, sir.”
“None of this fly-in, fly-out business.”
“Yes, sir.”
“That one’s always been a little crazy.”
Margaret stared down at her lap to hide her smile as she answered dutifully, “Yes, Father.”
“Now, you, Margaret. You’re a gal I can be proud of. Here on time. With Shane. Great things ahead.”
Margaret’s eyes widened as she basked in this rare moment of approval.
“Helping with the family business, not wasting your trust fund allowance running after some ne’er-do-well Frenchie.” He took a loud slurp of his soup. “Settling down with a good, solid, respectable businessman.”
A slight chill went through Margaret as her father’s shrewd blue eyes connected with her dazed brown ones. He wore a satisfied smile on his face, overconfident and puffed up, and something inside Margaret started to panic as the words settling down resonated like a gong in her head.
She vaguely registered the rustle of Shane moving his chair beside her, and turned—in horrified slow motion—to find him kneeling on the floor, an open ring box sitting in his flat, upturned hand.
“Margaret,” he said softly.
“Shane!” she gasped, leaning back from him. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Now, Margaret!” thundered her father. “You’ve no cause for that sort of language!” His tone gentled a little as he nodded toward Shane. “Listen to what the man has to say.”
She jerked her head to look at her father, her eyes filling with tears as she raised her chin in protest. “You knew.”
“Well, of course I did. Think Shane would pop the question without my permission?”
Margaret leaped to her feet, still staring at her father, the heavy weight of Shane’s kneeling form like a boulder behind her.
“Shane shouldn’t be popping the goddamned question at all! Unless he’s popping it to you!”
“Is that right?” asked her father, throwing his napkin on the table and leaning back in his chair with angry, narrowed eyes.
“That is right!” she exclaimed. She balled up her napkin and threw it down on the table, just like her father.
He pointed a stubby finger at her, his voice almost a growl. “You will sit down, Margaret Anne, and you will listen to what Shane has to say.”
“I. Will. Not.”
Margaret winced at the memory, sliding under her comforter to burrow into its warmth and hide. Her eyes filled with tears as she remembered the helpless feeling of being flanked by her father and her nonexclusive non-boyfriend, feeling trapped in a situation that she’d never even solicited.
Shane had snapped the ring box shut, and she turned to find him standing up behind her.
“Are you crazy?” she gasped, blinking furiously to hold back tears of anger and humiliation. “We’ve barely dated. We’ve never even . . .”
She stopped herself before blurting out “slept together,” cutting her eyes to her father’s furious face before clenching her teeth together and facing Shane again.
“It’s out of the question,” she whispered, barely registering the sheepish look in Shane’s eyes before stepping around him. She didn’t stop until she reached the powder room just outside the dining room and closed the door firmly. Then she’d braced her hands against the sink and let her tears of frustration and embarrassment flow freely.
Sighing deeply as the sunlight continued to bathe her face in morning light, Margaret wondered, was this what Shane had been droning on about in the car last night while she’d been daydreaming of Cameron Winslow? Proposing? Marriage? How could Shane be so insensitive, so stupid, so ridiculous, to think she’d accept him after two months of lukewarm dating?